In most knit products such as a sweater, a vest and a one-piece garment, a setting is formed on each end section of a knitted fabric. The setting is configured from structural patterns constituting a width of approximately several wales from the end section of the knitted fabric, and has a structural design that is different from the design of the other sections of the knitted fabric. When, for example, forming a front fabric and a rear fabric simultaneously or when forming both sleeves of the front fabric and rear fabric simultaneously by circumferentially forming in a tubular form, settings are formed on the armholes, waist, collar, inside and outside of the sleeves and the like of the front and rear fabrics. In this case, the inside or the outside of the waist and each sleeve is a section for connecting the front and rear knitted fabrics.
The applicant has proposed in WO 04/088022A1 how to simply design a setting pattern. An area for forming a setting has a width of approximately several wales from an edge of a knitted fabric. Therefore, by aligning this section so that the wale direction becomes virtually vertical, a vertically long rectangle is created, for example. This section is taken as a setting area, and by copying a unit pattern having one through several courses aligned vertically to this setting area so as to fill this setting area, the setting can be designed easily.
It is preferred that the shape of the setting area be altered when the external design of the knit product is altered. However, the inventor has focused attention on that the method described in WO 04/088022A1 cannot handle such alteration. When circumferentially forming a knit product, the point for starting the circumferential formation is located in, for example, the boundary between the front fabric and the rear fabric. A setting is usually formed on each side of this boundary. The inventor has focused attention on that the setting pattern on each side of the circumferential formation start point of the knit product obtained after the formation is different from the design data of the knit. Specifically, the setting pattern disposed on the same course according to the design data is shifted upward or downward by one course at each side of the circumferential formation start point in the actual knit product. If the design of the setting pattern changes along a wale direction, i.e., if the type of a stitch changes at every course, the types of stitches become uneven at both sides of the circumferential formation start point, which is not preferred in terms of the design.